Beyond the Veil of Sleep

by Starscribe

Chapter 21

It felt like only hours ago that Mira knew the cut of a knife across her throat, thrust by a hoof she thought she could trust. A bat pony just like her, somepony who should understand, somepony who should be willing to take steps to protect the rest of the tribe—instead doing everything he could to prevent Mira from doing what they all knew was necessary.

In a short time, she had reversed almost all of it—Sandy was here, Pixie was okay, and even Kallisto wasn't trying to kill her anymore.

Time in dreams was a strange thing. Minutes passed in her vision of a perfect Equestria, or maybe it was hours. That was the rest she really felt she needed, far better than anything she could find in that old monastery. Perhaps not abandoned anymore the way it had once been—but even that was a source of guilt, not relief. There would be no joy for her in that old place now, not without Kallisto living there.

Next thing she knew, they were all gathered in her home, an imagined mansion in the trees of many layers and filled with living plants. It was lit with mirrors and moonlight instead of torches or candles, but that never felt like it was inadequate.

"I keep coming back to the most important question," Kallisto said, sipping from a pitcher of chilled mango juice. "The night princess called on you to rescue her. That's a sacred duty, and seeking after it is noble. But how will you achieve it? The princess who called upon you is far wiser than any of us, and could not free herself. What could we do?"

The question instantly brought her out of her reverie, and down to the inescapable reality of her total inadequacy. Mira had no idea how to get Nightmare Moon free—all she had were bits and pieces of magical knowledge, none of which assembled into a complete picture.

"I know... that the princess is being held on the moon," she began. "I know her prison is designed to keep her in, not keep others out. And I know it's not perfect, because she already found one way through it. But..."

Her wings opened, fluttering nervously. "I also know that the Tyrant can see what happens there, because as soon as she turned her power on the Dreaming, she closed the hole our princess used. Whatever we find to get her out, we'll have to succeed on our first attempt."

Sandy's wings sagged at this news. She had her own plate of fruit now, mostly empty after their time catching up. "I haven't known you long, Mira. But succeeding the first time hasn't exactly been a hallmark of our work."

Kallisto stood, backing over to the wide, open window. "I was wrong to withhold proper instruction from you for this long," she said. "I can see you have a talent for Dreamcraft. You've willed a stable Dreamscape on your first attempt. If we had another decade, we could've transformed that raw talent into something powerful."

She snapped the curtains closed dramatically, casting a sudden shadow on her side of the room. "There are already precious few ponies who remember the world as it was. If the Tyrant gets her way, our tribe will fade into history, slowly crushed under the hooves of her loyal daywalkers. That's unacceptable."

"But?" Mira pressed.

"But that was already true before you were born. We had a just cause even back then, but we didn't have a plan. The princess has effectively created a... brilliant Dreamwalker, one with powers like hers. Between you and your familiar, you can probably manifest all her powers, or could with practice. You can travel between the dreams of sleeping ponies, and emerge at their bedsides in the waking world. You can rewrite dreams, to influence the sleepers when they wake. You can fight back nightmares, or conjure them into the waking world. You can bring daywalkers with you into that world for a short time, and solicit the aid of the Sparks."

The weight of those words settled on Mira. With them came some level of familiarity, just hearing the powers described awakened things the Nightmare princess had given her.

"The Tyrant's prison will not be escapable by any of those powers, or our princess would not be captive," Kallisto finished. "To release her, we'll need to do more than just travel to the moon. We need to go there with some power to undo the spellcraft trapping her. I don't know unicorn magic, do you?"

Mira gestured through the dreaming, levitating the window back open. A ghostly horn appeared above her when she did it, copying the magic a unicorn would've done. But if she wanted, she could look like one of them here, too. This was her Dreamspace, it couldn't trap her with labels and limits.

Sandy giggled. "Almost. But you still have wings."

Her old teacher was far less impressed. "If only the princess was imprisoned in your Dreamspace, it would be easy to free her."

Mira set her empty drink down. "I don't have a plan," she admitted. "But all those powers you say the Night Princess knew—the ones you think I have now. Even if we can't use them to break her free, we could still use them to assemble the way to do it. Like... traveling across dreams. Somepony in Equestria must know how the prison works, right? Maybe the first thing we should do is find our way into their dreams, so we can learn too. Find the weaknesses, then we'll know who to ask for help to break them."

"We can't invade the Tyrant's dreams!" Kallisto exclaimed. "Even if she doesn't have power over dreams, she'll have incredibly potent magic. Her dreams will be defended, and failure could render you permanently insane, and both of us erased completely."

Mira gasped. The audacity of that suggestion was appealing to her on some deep level, but it also wasn't what she had in mind. Maybe there would be a time for it—but Kallisto was right. It was much too dangerous for a young explorer and her vulnerable allies.

"If the Tyrant is anything like the other unicorns I've met, she doesn't do any of her own work. She'll have some... order of wizards or scholars somewhere who give her everything, while she pays them to be smart."

Sandy giggled again. "How many unicorns do you know, Mira?"

"No good ones," she answered. "Hollow Shades has a few. Most of them are just mean, but some of them are really mean. When the other tribes see it, that makes them mean too."

Mira didn't know how she'd done it, but suddenly her teacher was behind her, resting one foreleg on her shoulder. "Mira... even if they existed, those ponies are all dead by now. I'm one of the few who were young enough to even remember the night princess's banishment. Any scholars she had working for her were probably already old in those days."

That brought her up short. Ponies didn't live forever, and only bats even tried to escape their deaths to the Dreaming. Even if they had been traitor bats, she would have to find them here, not just wait for them to go to bed to watch their dreams.

"Okay, but—the Dreaming is huge, right? You always told me it was infinite. You can find everything here. Isn't that true?"

Kallisto pulled back, removing her leg. "It is."

"Does that include the old dreams of the dead? Lost knowledge, forgotten in the waking world?"

"You're looking for the Astral Sea," Sandy said, before Kallisto could. "On the borders of Hope, and... lots of other places. It's made of old dreams. But I've never heard of anypony who could find one. Except..." They trailed off, spreading their wings in sudden agitation. "Meridian. He can find anything. He was building an instrument for finding things in the sea. Not sure he was looking for old dreams, but—"

Mira hurried over, flinging her forelegs around the moth's shoulders. "That's perfect, Sandy!” she said. "We've already talked to him before. I'm sure he likes me enough to help."

"He wouldn't come with us," Pixie said flatly, hopping up onto the table. The cat had come and gone during the conversation as she pleased, sometimes listening and other times seeming entirely bored. Hopefully she spent some of that time watching over Mira's sleeping body down in the temple.

How was Night's ritual going, anyway? It was so strange to think of her body back there, surrounded by hundreds of strangers. Somepony could put a knife in her heart, and she might not even notice it had happened until she died here, and didn't wake up.

"This plan is simpler," Mira insisted. "We don't have to make a desperate trip to the moon. Just go near to where he's already living and do something he's already doing."

She turned towards the door, opening her wings. "Is there a way to go straight to Hope, without making such a long trip?"

"Easy." Kallisto followed her. "If you traveled there from Erebus, of course it took some time. But a dreamer's dream moves freely through the Dreamlands, matching whatever emotion is experienced within. All you have to do is make sure you exit at the right time. Joy is not the same as Hope, and its lands are not nearby."

Mira stopped at the doorway, without leaving into her imagined, ideal version of Understory. The city out there might be inviting, but it wasn't the hope she was looking for. "Walk me through how to do it."

"There's a typical way," Kallisto began. "But not necessary, when you have a resident of that land right here. Sandy can open a door for us, if they want to."

The moth snatched a few last pieces from their plate, chewing energetically, before joining Mira by the door. "Are you sure about this, Mira? The last time you talked to another bat about your plan, he tried to kill you. I don't want to lose my friendship with Meridian. I don't want him to stab me, either."

Mira nodded sympathetically. She could understand Sandy's fear. They had no body outside the Dreaming. If they died here, they would completely and totally stop existing. "I won't let that happen," she promised. "While you're with me, I'll do everything in my power to keep you alive, Sandy. You believed in me when nopony did, and I'll never forget that."

Sandy's wings buzzed nervously as she spoke, and they looked away, pawing at the ground. They took the front door in their hooves, then pushed it open. The place through it wasn't Mira's imagined Understory, but instead the familiar cobblestone streets and brass-roofs of Hope.

They were first through it, holding the door open with a back leg for the others to follow. "Time to see the mapmaker!" they said. "And convince him... again." They hesitated, just as Mira and Kallisto made it through the doorway.

Mira felt the change the instant her hooves landed on Hope's streets, and she was back in the familiar sunlight of the Dreaming. Too bright for her eyes, while simultaneously not hurting her head the way the true sun did. More importantly, her effortless power over the world around her had faded. She couldn't just reconfigure and erase anything that got in her way.

But some of those powers should still work for me over here, just less easily. She wouldn't just stare back stupidly the next time a pony tried to kill her, she would be ready. She wouldn't trust just because someone's wings looked like hers, either.

At least nopony in the adventurer's guild tried to murder her.

They reached the familiar steps to Meridian’s home, ascended to his door, and Mira knocked. There was no hesitation about it this time, or expectation that she would be turned around.

There was a loud shuffling from within, a gasp, something fell over—then the door opened.

The scene inside was utter chaos. Papers scattered, equipment broken, and the familiar mapmaker tied to a heavy chair, without any particular respect given to his comfort.

A pair of unicorns stood in the doorway, horns already glowing with power. "You must be Mira," one of them said. "We've been waiting for you."

Comments

[redmar]

I wonder what this means but I doubt it's good for Mira. Of course it's quite possible that Mira will learn that her impossible task is indeed impossible. After all the Elements of Harmony are probably still inert and nothing equals their power.

[MasterNotWriter6626]

11743947
Maybe, but for the current situation, Mira is probably going to awaken some instincts provided by Luna in the next chapter. Those unicorns are not going to have a nice day.

[Lexiebommel10]

No wonder all the daywalkers are against the bats, the unicorns stole thier magic and are using it to keep the ppl in line with thier ideals fuck